team

Our Lawyers

There are few relationships that have more importance than that of an attorney and a client. Choose your lawyer carefully. We choose our clients carefully, too. A good attorney client relationship involves a “good fit” in terms of personality, patience, intelligence, compassion, legal and personal skills and being able to get along well during the course of the representation. While our lawyers have overlapping skill sets and experience,You may also find, after talking to us, personally, that neither of us is the right “fit” for you. This is not hurtful to us, nor should our decision that your case is not “right” for us at this time.

Douglas W. Marshall

Doug Marshall was born and raised in Red Lodge and Carbon County, Montana and has worked to obtain justice for injured workers, survivors in wrongful death cases, employers, employees, farmers, ranchers, and persons charged with criminal offenses for over 30 years. He is committed to providing Montanans access to the justice system regardless of their social status or ability to pay and believes, strongly, that the weakest and most powerless in our society are entitled to equal protection under the law, regardless of how wealthy and well connected their adversaries are. Doug graduated with Honors from Montana State University in 1984, studied at Pacific University, the University of Oregon and obtained his law degree from the University of Montana in 1994. Prior to forming his own law practice with Suzanne Smith in 1994, Doug worked for a variety of distinguished Montana lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union working to protect the rights of injured Montanans, the mentally ill, persons charged with crimes, and small and medium sized businesses from across the country.

Doug has helped injured clients from across Montana and the United States obtain over eighty million dollars in settlements and verdicts from insurers, government and large corporations since beginning as a legal assistant during his undergraduate days in college in1982. Since founding his own practice with his partner and wife, Suzanne (Smith) Marshall in 1994, Doug has successfully represented hundreds of Montanans in matters involving wrongful death, business, automobile accidents, products liability, insurance bad faith, negligence, breach of contract, farm and ranch disputes, legal malpractice, medical malpractice, workers’ compensation, wrongful discharge, Social Security, fire cases, airplane crashes, divorce and criminal law cases. He has helped clients obtain numerous multi-million dollar settlements and verdicts, and has helped those accused of criminal conduct obtain multiple dismissals, favorable plea agreements and numerous “not guilty” judge and jury verdicts. He has helped numerous parents obtain and/or keep custody of their children over legal claims of divorcing spouses and, sometimes, government agencies such as the Child and Family Services division of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. . He is an experienced practitioner in the Montana Department of Labor and Industry, the Montana Workers Compensation Court, the Social Security Administration, Municipal Courts, Justice Courts, State and Federal District Courts throughout Montana, and has handled numerous appeals to the Montana Supreme Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth and Federal Circuits.

Doug does not like to have more than 15-25 cases open at any one time and prefers to focus on significant cases involving serious injuries, serious criminal allegations and serious business or family law matters. This does not mean that he does not take small cases from time to time, but likes to be available to his clients at all times, and devote substantial time and effort on those matters he is willing to accept. This, necessarily, limits the amount of cases he can handle at any one time. Doug frequently communicates via text message, cell phone and email with clients, in addition to being available for in person meetings on a frequent basis.